All references cited in this specification, and their references, are incorporated by reference herein where appropriate for teachings of additional or alternative details, features, and/or technical background.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the duplication of digital content such as, without limitation, that used for the distribution of digital cinema media content.
2. Description of the Related Art
The presently disclosed embodiments are directed to duplication of media across storage devices as could be used in a number of areas such as, for example, the duplication of computer disk drives.
Until recently, conventional media for the motion picture industry has been 35 mm film. In conventional movie film manufacture, the original color negative film is composed into a color master positive or interpositive print. The master copy is then transferred to a one-light color duplicate negative copy called the internegative, with several internegative copies optionally being created to minimize duplication time. From the internegative stock, many thousands of copies are created on specialized equipment in post-production facilities for worldwide distribution of film copies. For the one hundred thousand plus theater screens worldwide, a post-production process, such as this, is very time consuming and requires a great deal of consumable film stock. In addition, the quality of the recording is degraded with each copy and/or transfer step. Furthermore, repetitive duplication runs of the internegative degrades it's own image quality, therefore, depreciating the image quality of the final release copies ultimately shown to the public.
In the 35 mm world, distribution companies create the requisite number of copies according to the combined orders from all theaters. A two to three thousand foot full length feature film is divided into multiple reel segments prior to shipping to the theaters. A projectionist may inspect the film for damage, splice the segments into one continuous feed, and mount the film for projection onto a single spool. If a film is found damaged beyond repair, the projectionist sources a replacement prior to opening night repeating the inspection and splicing prior to showing.
More recently, digital media has entered the scene of cinematography. Digital media allows producers in the motion picture industry to make use of digital intermediates for the editing of film content and post-production processes as well as permitting the opportunity to convert entirely to an all digital production and/or post-production process. While the editing process has benefited from digital media content, the move to digital theaters and the related digital projection systems has, however, generated it's own set of difficulties. For example, the volume of data involved in a typical digital movie and its need to be transferred and copied with fidelity has created a new obstacle. More so is the obstacle when the digital content includes high image resolution, and color definition of thirty trillion colors or more to provide viewers a positive viewing experience. In some cases, large digital media content data files of four hundred gigabytes or more may constitute a digital movie.
In the digital world, the duplication process at the distributor may involve the creation of a thousand or more hard disk drives, which may take considerably more time than duplicating film. As the number of digital theaters rise and the number of release copies required for these digital theaters increases into the tens of thousands, the cost of post-production duplication and verification of a feature film's digital media content over a reasonable amount of time is escalating and placing additional burdens on the distribution system.
Current digital copy systems allow duplication to a limited number and type of target drives. Duplication of digital media content to thousands of drives using the currently available discrete duplication systems and methods poses several problems. Current systems lack the flexibility and central management, coordination and tracking capabilities necessary for large duplication processing. In addition, duplications derived from current systems may also suffer from less-than-complete digital content verification on every target drive. Therefore, there exists a need to provide improved systems and methods to duplicate, manage and track digital media content to a plurality of target locations.